Veritas Upgrades Backup Exec

Veritas says new version of its popular Windows-based product is 88 percent faster than the prior release.

Veritas Software Corp. Wednesday announced Backup Exec 9.0, the first upgrade to the companys popular Windows-based product in 18 months.
The new version, which is for Windows and is available now, costs $795 for a basic configuration, and is 88 percent faster than the prior version, 8.6, which launched in summer 2001, officials of the Mountain View, Calif. management software company said.
Along with a speedier installation, demonstrated live by chairman, president and CEO Gary Bloom, the new version also has a Web-based interface, which works across the Internet, not just on local networks. Absent in the new version is the normally complex tape library support.

Bloom did not address the security issues around the new remote accessibility, instead focusing on the products tight Windows integration.

"We can now, in a very granular way, do recovery in an Exchange environment," Bloom said. That will be increasingly important as companies get more e-mail, are forced to keep it for longer amounts of time, and must be able to recovery specifics messages and quickly, he said.
Bloom did bring up the industry rumor that Backup Exec will be cancelled after version 9.0s lifetime. "Its not going away, its a critical product for us. Its an enormous revenue stream. In many cases it opens a lot of doors for our broader product portfolio," he said. But, "we will over time continue to share components" between it and the high-end NetBackup software, he said.
Backup Exec competes against BakBone Software Inc.s NetVault, CommVault Systems Inc.s Galaxy, Computer Associates International Inc.s ArcServe, IBMs Tivoli Storage Manager, and native Windows tools.